J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 eBook

Meanwhile, our lodger’s habits continued precisely
the same. If, indeed, the sounds which came from
his apartments were to be trusted, he and his agents
were more on the alert than ever. I can convey
to you, good reader, no notion, even the faintest,
of the dreadful sensation always more or less present
to my mind, and sometimes with a reality which thrilled
me almost to frenzy—­the apprehension that
I had admitted into my house the incarnate spirit
of the dead or damned, to torment me and my family.

It was some nights after the burial of our dear little
baby; we had not gone to bed until late, and I had
slept, I suppose, some hours, when I was awakened
by my wife, who clung to me with the energy of terror.
She said nothing, but grasped and shook me with more
than her natural strength. She had crept close
to me, and was cowering with her head under the bedclothes.

The room was perfectly dark, as usual, for we burned
no night-light; but from the side of the bed next
her proceeded a voice as of one sitting there with
his head within a foot of the curtains—­and,
merciful heavens! it was the voice of our lodger.

He was discoursing of the death of our baby, and inveighing,
in the old mocking tone of hate and suppressed fury,
against the justice, mercy, and goodness of God.
He did this with a terrible plausibility of sophistry,
and with a resolute emphasis and precision, which seemed
to imply, “I have got something to tell you,
and, whether you like it or like it not, I will
say out my say.”

To pretend that I felt anger at his intrusion, or
emotion of any sort, save the one sense of palsied
terror, would be to depart from the truth. I
lay, cold and breathless, as if frozen to death—­unable
to move, unable to utter a cry—­with the
voice of that demon pouring, in the dark, his undisguised
blasphemies and temptations close into my ears.
At last the dreadful voice ceased—­whether
the speaker went or stayed I could not tell—­the
silence, which he might be improving for the purpose
of some hellish strategem, was to me more tremendous
even than his speech.

We both lay awake, not daring to move or speak, scarcely
even breathing, but clasping one another fast, until
at length the welcome light of day streamed into the
room through the opening door, as the servant came
in to call us. I need not say that our nocturnal
visitant had left us.

The magnanimous reader will, perhaps, pronounce that
I ought to have pulled on my boots and inexpressibles
with all available despatch, run to my lodger’s
bedroom, and kicked him forthwith downstairs, and the
entire way moreover out to the public road, as some
compensation for the scandalous affront put upon me
and my wife by his impertinent visit. Now, at
that time, I had no scruples against what are termed
the laws of honour, was by no means deficient in “pluck,”
and gifted, moreover, with a somewhat excitable temper.
Yet, I will honestly avow that, so far from courting
a collision with the dreaded stranger, I would have
recoiled at his very sight, and given my eyes to avoid
him, such was the ascendancy which he had acquired
over me, as well as everybody else in my household,
in his own quiet, irresistible, hellish way.